BigBand Networks posts 4Q loss of $13.8 million

Switched digital video (SDV) pioneer BigBand Networks reported its fourth-quarter results yesterday, which included a loss of $13.8 million, or 23 cents per share, compared with net income for the same quarter in 2006 of $8.9 million, or 15 cents per share.

Part of the loss included $3.1 million in stock-based compensation expenses, $3 million in restructuring charges and $143,000 in amortization of intangibles. Excluding those items, BigBand’s loss would have been $7.4 million, or 12 cents per share, compared with income of $10.7 million, or 18 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2006.

“Our fourth quarter results were in line with our guidance, and we enter the first quarter with a strong base of deferred revenue and improving outlook,” said Amir Bassan-Eskenazi, chairman and CEO of BigBand.

“We remain the technology and deployment leader in switched digital video, a technology that continues to gain mindshare with the largest North American cable operators as a cost-efficient path to service expansion,” he continued. “We also continue to make progress with TelcoTV development and deployment. We are confident in our long-term growth strategy and market position.”

Fourth-quarter revenues for BigBand were $30.7 million, compared with revenues of $63 million in the same time frame in 2006.

Going forward, BigBand expects first-quarter revenue to be in the range of $35 million to $39 million, with a loss of 8 cents to 11 cents per share.

Last month, BigBand announced the fifth-generation of its SDV technology. BigBand’s SDV customers include Charter, Cox Communications – both of which came on board late last year – Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and Comcast, although Comcast is currently using just BigBand’s digital video management software.

In other BigBand news, the company will be demonstrating several of its video products at next week’s CableLabs Winter Conference in Colorado Springs, Colo. BigBand will outline how cable operators can enhance picture quality and increase spectrum density by delivering SDV and on-demand streams in variable-bit-rate (VBR) formats during CableLabs’ invitation-only Innovation Showcase.